Boots

Chapter 17: The First Supper

By the time my brother came back from the shower, I was dressed up and ready to head downstairs. I had my best Hawaiian shirt on. The one that had the big red flowers with long yellow noses sticking out of them. I wanted to make a good impression.

“Let me put on some clean pants, and we’ll go down and meet the family.”

My brother pulled some jeans out of his suitcase and jumped into them.

“Are you ready?”

I gave a fake nod and a nervous smile. I wasn’t ready, but I knew I had to. The emotional exhaustion of the bus ride was hitting me.

All of it.

I wanted to lie down and disappear under some covers.

My brother started walking out the door. I followed him.

I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I guess I might as well since I’m telling you everything else. About halfway down the stairs I decided I was going to try to be nice and not start hating everyone until I got to know them. I knew I loved my dad, but I wasn’t sure about anyone else.

“Come on in here boys and meet everybody.”

My dad sounded a little too excited to see us when we got to the bottom of the stairs. We rounded the corner single file and slowly marched over to the dinner table. I quickly scanned the room. Glenn and Jennifer were sitting halfway down the table on my right. I hadn’t met them yet, but you didn’t need to be a raving genius to figure that one out. There was a mysterious man at the far end of the table with his back to the kitchen.

Dad had wandered over to see what was happening on the stove. Nettie Sue was in there with another woman I didn’t know, but she seemed to match the man at the head of the table, so I guessed they were part of a set.

“What’s your favorite kind of bridge?”

Before I had time to answer, since I didn’t really understand the question, Glenn’s needle started skipping.

“Sometimes I like drawbridges because they have motors that make them go up and down, but then I like suspension bridges because they are hanging on cables and they don’t move unless it’s really windy… like a northeaster. I guess they move sometimes if there’s an earthquake, but that doesn’t happen very much unless you’re in San Francisco. Have you ever been to San Francisco? I used to live there for two years, but I don’t remember anything. I think my favorite bridges are cantilever bridges. I like trestle bridges too, but cantilever bridges are my favorite.”

I didn’t know what my favorite bridge was, but I was pretty sure Glenn wasn’t quite all right. I managed a couple of nods so he knew I’d heard him. I pulled out the chair across from the kid my dad replaced me with and sat down. My brother sat across from Jennifer.

“Now… Glenn Thomas, you need to let our guests get settled before you start talking their ears off about your bridges.”

When Glenn’s mom called out to him from the kitchen, he retreated somewhere back behind his eyes, and his hands started twitching on the table like an upside down caterpillar trying to flip over. While Glenn was busy being on the fritz, I took another look into the kitchen to see if I could form some opinions about the lady mixing up pie dough on the counter. From what I could see, she had on an Easter dress under her apron. I couldn’t figure out why you would put on a fancy dress to make a pie crust.

Most of the middle-aged women back home didn't wear dresses with bows and stuff like that unless they were pretending to be something they weren't really. Maybe for a Christmas party. She also had a lot of dark curls that sat like a jello mold on her head. It looked like she’d washed her hair in a chocolate fountain. Her face was so white, it didn’t seem completely natural. She reminded me of a dipped cone from Dairy Queen.

I took a couple of peeks out of the corner of my eye at the man sitting at the head of the table. I was trying hard not to look over at him too much because he wasn't trying too hard to look at me. After I’d finished with the peeks, I started piecing all of those peeks together. The first thing I’d noticed was his neck. It had spent so much time cooking in the hot sun, it was quilted like a honey-baked ham. His shoulders were so narrow they seemed to be having trouble holding up his overall suspenders. His crusty boots poked out from under his rolled-up cuffs a lot farther than they should have. They were so worn out, I wondered if they'd been passed down through the family. If you are imagining what his face looked like, so was I. He was looking down at some sort of tractor swap magazine, and all I could see was his tattered old trucker’s cap. I think it was yellow on top and had a brown bill, but it was so stained with sweat and grease I wasn’t too sure. It definitely had a corn cob with some wings shooting out, and a word spelled out in red letters that I couldn’t pronounce.

Right about then the women started bringing in platters and bowls of food from the kitchen. My dad followed them back over to the table.

“Just look at this meal these beautiful young ladies have prepared for us.”

Whenever my dad started trotting out his flirty character, I always got a little sick to my stomach.

Nettie Sue put down a big dish filled with something that looked like tiny green shotgun shells floating in snot.

“I bet you haven’t seen that before. It’s called okra. It tastes a lot better than it looks.”

I guess my dad saw my nose twitch when she placed that stuff in front of me. I wasn’t going to try it. I was still full from the lunch at Howard Johnson’s anyway. I saw plenty of other normal things arriving like mashed potatoes and gravy that I could eat if I needed to be polite.

You might be noticing that I haven’t told you anything about Jennifer. You already know that she was sitting there right across from my brother. The interesting thing about her was that with all that talking going on, she was just listening. I’d already figured out that she was pretty smart. I was planning on figuring out everything else about her later.

“Did you boys say hello to Mr. Jimmy Britt?”

Dad had taken his place at the other end of the table before the women had finished bringing everything in. Some rolls were arriving just as he started his introduction.

“Mr. Jimmy here is the richest man in Bladen County. He and Helen over there pretty much own this whole town.”

“Now Jerry, you just hush yourself up right there. You’re talking us all the way up to the clouds! And in front of these kids… it’s shameful…”

She giggled a little when she said shameful. Now I knew a couple of things. Her name was Mrs. Helen Britt, and she liked being talked up.

“Well, I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. Mr. Jimmy and Mrs. Helen here own all the farmland for at least fifty miles. They even own this house too, and they’re letting us buy it from them when we get around to it.”

My brother and I gave Mr. Britt synchronized nods when he looked up from his reading. Everything I knew about extreme wealth I’d learned from watching TV, and when I looked over at Mr. Jimmy, I was shocked to find out he had enough money to buy that magazine in his hands.

My dad took a sip of sweet tea, puffed up, and stretched all the way out in his chair.

“Isn’t this just wonderful? This is the first supper where we’re all here together.”

I heard a couple of sounds from the adults. The kids didn’t react much.

“Tomorrow I’m taking you boys out to the peanut farm.”